Various devices may be equipped with sliding lids of different design. Of particular interest with respect to the present invention are tambour-style (flexible) sliding lids, which typically include a number of strips or segments that are flexibly joined to permit sliding of the lid along a curved path. This type of lid has been used for many years on furniture, such as roll top desks. This type of lid has also made its way into the automotive field, and may be found in use as a cover element for a storage compartment—most commonly a center console storage compartment.
As would no doubt be familiar to many, current vehicle storage compartment flexible lid designs may allow objects resting on the lid to pass along with the lid into a substantially inaccessible area of the associated storage compartment structure when the lid is retracted. This makes retrieval of such objects difficult if not impossible without disassembling the storage compartment.
As illustrated in the transparent view of FIG. 1A, certain known vehicle storage compartment 5 designs attempt to provide a minimized gap 10 (or actual interference), between a top surface of a flexible sliding lid 15 and an overlying portion 20 of the storage compartment housing 25 in order to prevent the passage of objects into the storage compartment interior. The idea behind this design is that the overlying portion 20 of the storage compartment housing 25 will act as a barrier to entry of objects into the storage compartment housing. Unfortunately, if the provided gap 10 is larger than intended due to manufacturing tolerances or to a change in part dimensions (e.g., due to aging or temperature), or if an intended interference fit fails to interfere for the same or similar reasons, then objects may still pass between the lid 15 and the overlying portion 20 of the housing structure and into the interior of the storage compartment housing 25.
As depicted in FIG. 1B, an alternative known design vehicle storage compartment 30 design employs a somewhat flexible rubber guard 35 to prevent objects from passing into the interior of the storage compartment housing 40 when the flexible sliding lid 45 is opened. The guard 35 extends downward from an overlying portion 50 of the compartment housing 40 to contact the lid 45 across its entire upper surface, and to block the passage of objects into the interior of the storage compartment housing 40 when the lid is retracted. Unfortunately, it has been found that this design suffers from problems similar to those described above with respect to the design of FIG. 1A, and objects still undesirably get past the guard 35 and find their way into the interior of the storage compartment housing 40. Causing the guard 35 to exert a greater contact force on the sliding lid 45 may reduce the number of objects that get past the guard but, as should be obvious, also makes sliding of the lid more difficult.
In light of the problems associated with known vehicle storage compartment designs, it would be desirable to provide a storage compartment design that prevents objects that inadvertently pass with an associated flexible lid into the interior of the storage compartment from being lost. The sliding lid design of the present invention provides this function.